A question has long since arisen, how far the ingestion of animal
matter, in a state of putrefaction, is liable to affect the health? On
the one hand it has been maintained that the custom of eating game,
venison, and other species of animal food, in a state of incipient
putrescence, has never been attended with any inconvenience; but
appears, on the contrary, to afford a repast of easier digestion, than
the flesh of recently killed animals. On the other hand, it has been
asserted by _Foderé_,[481] and corroborated by the testimony of others,
that corrupted meat, fish, and eggs, are undoubted poisons; if, through
inadvertence, necessity, or extreme hunger, they are taken in any
quantity. The same distinguished writer relates that, during the siege
of Mantua, several persons who were shut up in the town were seized with
gangrene of the extremities, and scurvy, in consequence of having been
driven to the alternative of eating the half putrid flesh of horses. In
_Crantz’s_ history of Greenland we read an account of the death of
thirty-two persons, at a missionary station, called Kangek, shortly
after a repast upon the putrid brains of a Walrus.
It would appear that under circumstances not hitherto understood,
certain parts of animal bodies become poisonous; and the _virus_ would
not seem to be connected with any stage of putrefaction, nor with any
previous disease in the animal. As far as our limited experience upon
this subject will allow us to generalize, the brain and the viscera
would appear to be particularly susceptible of such a change. Some
curious and highly interesting observations have lately been published
by _Dr. Kerner_, of Wurtemberg, respecting the probable existence of a
species of animal poison not hitherto known. He informs us that the
smoked sausages, which constitute so favourite a repast to the
inhabitants of Wurtemberg, often cause fatal poisoning. The effects of
the poison occasionally manifest themselves in the spring, generally in
the month of April, in a degree more or less alarming. He states that
out of _seventy-six_ persons, who became sick from having eaten such
sausages, _thirty-seven_ died in a short time, and that several others
remained ill for years. Upon these occasions it has been observed, that
the most virulent sausages were made of liver. _M. Cadet_, of Paris,
analysed all the meats, examined all the vessels in which they had been
prepared; and inspected the matters vomited, or found in the stomach
after death, without being able to trace the vestige of any known
poison; nor was there the slightest evidence in these cases of
malevolence or negligence. Similar accidents have occurred at different
periods in Paris; upon which occasions, the police officers visited the
pig dealers, and were perfectly assured that the animals had never been
fed with unwholesome food; the use of poison for rats, with which these
places abound, was interdicted, and every precaution taken. What then,
asks _M. Cadet_, is this poison found in sausage meats—is it Prussic
acid—is it a new matter? It is evidently not the effect of putrefaction,
since it exists in meats perfectly well preserved. To the above queries
of _M. Cadet_, the author of the present work begs to add one more—may
not the skin enclosing the sausage meat be the part in which the poison
resides? It is well known that the bodies of animals who die of various
diseases, are capable of communicating fatal diseases to the human
species; and experience has shewn that such animal poison is
particularly energetic in those parts that are commonly called the
_offals_, in which term are included the intestines; in the history of
_fish-poison_, which will hereafter offer itself to our notice, we shall
find numerous instances of dogs, cats, hogs, and birds, dying from
eating these parts, while persons, who have partaken of the fish to
which these _offals_ belonged, remained uninjured. But to account for
the deleterious change of which these parts appear to be occasionally
susceptible, it does not appear necessary to suppose that the animal
died in a state of disease. _Captain Scoresby_, in his “Account of the
Arctic regions,”[482] states that although the flesh of the bear is both
agreeable and wholesome, the liver of that animal is poisonous; sailors
who had inadvertently eaten it, were almost always sick afterwards, and
some actually died; while in others the cuticle has peeled off their
bodies. The ancients appear to have entertained a fear with regard to
the wholesomeness of the viscera of certain animals, and of the fluids
which they secrete. _Pliny_ says that the gall of a horse was accounted
poison; and, therefore, at the sacrifices of horses in Rome, it was
unlawful for the _Flamen_ (priest) to touch it. _Mr. Brodie_ has lately
favoured the author with the communication of a fact, which goes far to
support the theory we have offered with respect to the possible source
of poison in sausages. He states that he has twice met with evidence of
the acrid and poisonous nature of “_dog’s meat_,” as sold in the streets
of London, which manifested itself by producing ulcerations, of a
peculiar character, on the hands, and swelling in the axillæ, of the
venders! May we venture to ask whether the prosecution of this inquiry
might not possibly lead to some new and important conclusions respecting
the origin of hydrophobia?
Where animals have died from disease, their flesh has undoubtedly
produced affections by external contact, as well as by its ingestion. At
the Somerset assizes in 1819, a case was tried, whose merits wholly
turned upon the question now under discussion. A cow, having died of
some disease, was thrown into the river Yeo, and several cattle that
afterwards drank of the water died of a similar complaint. An action was
accordingly brought against the owner of the cow for damages. The
defendant, however, obtained a verdict, apparently from the evidence of
a medical person, who asserted that animal matter in a state of
putrefaction will not communicate contagion. But we must here beg to
observe that this is quite another and distinct question; the merits of
which we have already considered.[483] The physiological question
involved in the preceding case, is whether the carcase of an animal,
whose fluids have been depraved by antecedent disease, is capable, or
not, of producing morbid and fatal affections in the living animals with
which it may come in contact? The facts collected by _MM. Enaux_ and
_Chaussier_, in their work entitled “_Methode de traiter les Morsures
des Animaux enragés_,” prove in a very satisfactory manner that the
_Anthrax_, or _Malignant Pustule_, has for its cause a _septic virus_
engendered in diseased animals, and transmitted to man.[484] The
following are amongst the more striking examples cited from these
authors by _Orfila_. “A shepherd bled one of his sheep, which had just
died suddenly; he carried it home on his shoulders; but the blood
penetrated his shirt, and was rubbed upon his loins. Two days after, a
_malignant pustule_ appeared upon this spot.”
“A boy employed in skinning an ox which had been killed at an inn at
_Gatinais_, because it had been sick, put the knife into his mouth.
Shortly after which the tongue swelled; he experienced a tightness of
the chest; the whole body was covered with pustules, and he died on the
fourth day, in a state of general gangrene. The inn-keeper, who was
pricked in the middle of the hand by a bone of the same animal, suffered
great pain; gangrene seized the arm, and he expired on the seventh day.
The servant girl received on her right cheek a few drops of the blood of
the same ox, which produced inflammation, followed by gangrene.”
In this country, a case has occurred highly illustrative of the present
subject. A pupil of the veterinary college accidentally inoculated
himself, during his dissection, with the matter of a _glandered_ horse;
the student soon experienced the usual symptoms of a septic poison;
abscesses formed in various parts of his body, and he sank under the
disease. Upon inoculating a healthy horse with some of the matter from
the abscesses, the animal was attacked with the glanders.
This subject necessarily leads us to the notice of those effects which
are frequently produced in the anatomist, by a puncture made during
dissection. From the history of those cases which stand recorded, it
does not appear that the poisonous effects are either connected with the
putrefactive state of the body under dissection, or with the peculiar
disease of which it died; but rather with the depraved state of the
operator’s health; for it has been repeatedly remarked that those
students who enjoy high health universally escape the evil, however
repeatedly they may have been exposed to its causes.